BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) – April is distracted driving awareness month. According to Drive Safe Alabama, 60 people in the state died due to distracted driving in 2023. That same year, the ‘Hands-Free’ law was put in place in Alabama.

“My daughter was a senior at Thompson in Alabaster, three months away from graduation, 26 days to her 18th birthday, thinking about prom, thinking about graduation, thinking about what she was going to do afterwards, and her life was tragically cut short from being distracted behind the wheel with her phone,” said Michelle Lunsford.

Lunsford’s daughter, Camryn, was killed in 2018 after running into the back of an 18-wheeler on her way home from work.

“I was told that she was on her phone, that she was texting. That’s what the police had told me, that someone saw her do that,” she said. “I was able to see through her email that she wasn’t texting, she was actually recording a ‘happy birthday’ message to a friend, so I found out that way, and I actually heard her voice. The last thing she had to say was that happy birthday message.”

Lunsford played a big role in getting the ‘Hands-Free’ law passed in the state. This law makes it illegal to hold a phone or other electronic while you’re behind the wheel. The punishment right now is points on your license and a fine.

“You get in the car, and you just don’t think anything about it. You don’t think about the distractions, you don’t think about that ‘I just got in a fight with my husband, and I’m upset and I’m not truly thinking,'” said Lunsford. “There’s visual, your eyes being on the road; manual, your hands on the wheel, not touching that phone; and cognitive, are you paying attention to driving? And just to be aware. That’s what I want everyone to remember, to be aware. Because the consequences of something happening could be a nightmare.”

Clay Ingram with AAA Alabama believes the punishment for distracted driving should be just as harsh as those for driving drunk or on drugs.

“It’s a different type of danger, but the level of danger is almost exactly the same, and it should be socially unacceptable, just as drinking and driving has become over the years,” said Ingram. “It’s something that needs to have a little more attention and a little more light shined on it to make people aware of just how dangerous it is.”

According to AAA, most people think of distracted driving as being on your phone, but it can also be reading a sign or billboard or eating. AAA recommends using Bluetooth for any phone calls in the car and using a phone mount for navigation if your car does not have a built-in system.

“We know it’s dangerous, and it’s one of those things that people think that they can do it. Most people think ‘well, I’m good at doing it but I don’t want anyone else doing it,’ so it’s a do as I say, not as I do type mentality,” Ingram said. “That fact alone should tell a lot of people, ‘hey, wait a minute, this really is very dangerous, and we shouldn’t be doing it.’”

According to the Auburn University Transportation Research Institute, fatal car crashes have increased over the last 15 years believed to be due in part to distracted driving. The university has been using Australian technology to study distracted driving across the state.

“We’re in the midst of the study now, but we’re just trying to see, does this system that we’re putting out there actually measure distracted driving and how accurate is it? And then that information will be used by enforcement agents to see how they could use this to actually make our roads safer,” said AUTRI Director Laurence Rilett. “We can certainly say at the end, of these 25 locations that we’re studying, these ones had much more distracted or not.”

AUTRI’s distracted driving technology study is expected to be completed and published by this October.